The official Mastodon app is doing something new which is potentially very dangerous to the existence of Mastodon and the Fediverse.
The official Mastodon app now prompts users to join mastodon.social by default, when previously it prompted them to pick a server. If you're new this may sound harmless, but let me explain.
The entire point of this place is to be a social network spread out on as many servers as possible (the reasons are here: https://fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse-on-so-many-separate-servers/).
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There is technically still an option on the official app to "pick my own server", but it's much harder to read or notice, and new users will probably click the mastodon.social button without even thinking about the other button.
Mastodon.social just passed 1 million registered users about a week ago, out of a total network of approx 7 to 11 million users (dependiing on how you count them).
The official app is by far the most commonly used way to sign up on Mastodon and the Fediverse.
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For the first time ever, the most common way to sign up on the Fediverse is now directing people to sign up on one specific server, rather than making them choose.
This will make mastodon.social grow even more quickly than it has before, and future waves of new people may end up mostly there. It's very plausible this one server could become the majority of the Fediverse in the near future.
If that happens, the Fediverse would no longer be protected from buyouts by nasty people.
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Yes, signing up on one server is much easier for people who are used to centralised services like Twitter, Facebook etc.
But as we have seen from Twitter, such a setup leaves you at the mercy of Musk-type takeovers. For-profit social networks do not like federation, they hate it as they see it as competition. It is very likely that a commercial takeover of a majority server would defederate it, to prevent people leaving and simplify its maintenance.
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This is not an attack on Eugen, I don't do those. Most of what @Gargron does is amazing, the Fedi owes him a great deal, and the fact he turned down large sums of VC money recently shows great integrity.
But eventually most people in that position will crack. Ever larger sums of money can make even the nicest people sell out.
If most of the Fediverse is on mastodon.social, it WILL receive more takeover bids. If it grows even further, these bids will become even higher.
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So, what can be done?
1. Tell new people to use third party apps, they are better anyway and have more features. More info at https://fedi.tips/which-apps-can-i-use-should-i-use-the-official-app-or-a-third-party-app/
2. Tell people to sign up on the website. Mastodon's official site at https://joinmastodon.org is still asking people to choose a server, and is very professionally laid out. (I've also got my own amateurish effort at https://fedi.garden.)
3. If you're comfortable using github, give a thumbs up at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-ios/issues/1023
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@feditips I feel like this is the same pains we feel in the WordPress space. OS let's forking happen. This might happen. Who knows. But thanks for a great thread.
Some user friendliness in the user sign up process is good. I suggest that you read the thread again.
Twitter got bought. If someone offered me a mere billion dollars I'd sell Mastodon.social were it mine to sell.
$1,000,000,0000. Convert that to your local currency and think about your family and friends and how you could make the world a better place with that money.
I'd do it and not even feel guilty TBPH.
@Homebrewandhacking
But won't the federated nature make it even easier to migrate elsewhere in case of Musk-like buyout? It made people come here from Twitter in waves and this time they have to learn how to use new software, have to pick an instance, have no way to keep their followers… In case mastodon.social get new admins, people should already know other instances they like, and they can keep their social connections.
@folkerschamel @seth @feditips
I understand where you're coming from (4.1k posts this month is quite impressive, you clearly like it here).
This is my third account, so I don't disagree that the UX is not great.
I think that onboarding people into .social is contrary to good decentralised practice. Where are the extra moderators coming from? With so many users, Mastodon.social _already_ had complaints of bad moderation.
This looks guaranteed to lead to it's defederation.
No, not in one month, I'm not that fruitful, 4k total, in 2 years probably 😅
Stats might be skewered because this instance uses an old version of Masto.
But I do like it here! I'm all into what a lot of people here are in, like cats and obscure computer architectures…
And even for me it wasn't easy to make my mind up. While I was reading stuff on Twitter a lot, I never had an account I was looking for some alternative that is more serious about privacy. In fact it was ProtonMail that pointed me in the right direction.
They had a Mastodon account (they have left since, but now returned) so I realized that a decentralized alternative exists, then I realized that "social" thing by Purism uses the same protocol and I said: "Why not try it?"
Again, I am tech-savvy, I'm online well since the 90-ies and even for me making a choice of instance (will this one really be the right one for me?) was a little confusing — self hosting the thing you know nothing about is out of the question. A lot of people used centralized media all their life (doesn't necessary mean they are bad people) — I can't even imagine what it's like for them.
I do agree that funneling everyone to a single instance is bad practice and something is to be improved. Still, making a person pick something without giving them a taste of it first and not giving them time to hang around is confusing. Some might thing that it's a good filter to keep outsiders away, but I don't think that way at all, Fedi deserves to keep it spirit, but it doesn't mean it has to be an obscure closed circle. On top of that, who does it keep out? I don't consider myself not smart or knowledgeable enough, I wasn't born into the Web 2.0 things, I lived through them (and didn't like them), but I signed up not long ago and I remember quite well that even I had doubts.
@m0xee @folkerschamel @seth @feditips
@Homebrewandhacking Sorry for using my other account to reply, but I really don't like it when I have to split my reply into five parts when it gets long and 500 characters is the limit I have on Librem Social instance.
@m0xee @Homebrewandhacking @folkerschamel @seth @feditips
"But won't the federated nature make it even easier to migrate elsewhere in case of Musk-like buyout?"
Not if they defederate the server before announcing the takeover.
@m0xee @Homebrewandhacking @folkerschamel @seth @feditips If it were me trying to take over a large server and monetize it, the first thing I would do is disable the functionality that lets users download their follows/followers/content, and make it impossible to "migrate" an account. Make the cost of leaving too high to justify, then you have a walled garden from which you can harvest subscription fees and ad revenue.
@knottedthreads
It is like that in theory, but you have to do it gradually and time your moves. If you cripple the functionality too much it'll cause a backlash, the trick is not to reach the critical mass when most would be ready to leave.Doing that to media that was originally decentralized makes it even harder, it's like messing with open source projects. Oracle acquired OpenOffice and MySQL with Sun and… Meet LibreOffice and MariaDB 😁
@Homebrewandhacking @folkerschamel @seth @feditips
@knottedthreads @m0xee @Homebrewandhacking @seth @feditips
Yes, this possibility is a design flaw in the current protocols.
But this is not the fault of the users. They should not be punished for that by a bad user experience.
It's the job of all developers to fix that.
@Homebrewandhacking
I don't even think that such buyout is reasonable. Had someone done something similar to what Musk does to Twitter to any particular Fedi instance, people'd be out of the door in a matter of week if not less.
On the other hand, picking your Fedi instance when you don't even know what Fedi is VERY confusing — what I did is went with the first one run by the company I trusted and I still like it although I started hosting my own one since then🤷
@folkerschamel @seth @feditips